Direct Mail Offers What Other Marketing Methods Can’t

Technology has changed the world, and the world of marketing. There isn’t any disputing that. The capabilities and new avenues of marketing from email, to video and even social media marketing are all valuable marketing avenues. Yet for all the glitz and glamour that comes with technology and digital marketing, there is still no replacement for direct mail marketing.

There are several benefits afforded by direct mail that have yet to be replaced by any other marketing method. These are three examples of direct mail doing what nothing else can:

Conveying a Personal Touch

A simple comparison quickly sheds light on the personal feel and impact that direct mail can deliver. If you get a personal email from a close friend, it makes you feel warm and fuzzy, right? Now what if that same message came in the form of direct mail, a hand-written letter – it’s special isn’t it? There is just a personal and human element to direct mail that has yet to be emulated by anything else. This might explain why a recent study revealed that more than 60% of those who received direct mail were swayed to visit a website promoted by those direct mailings. There is a real impact and power behind that hand delivered message.

Delivers Excitement

Maybe this begins when we are still just young children, and that birthday card that comes in the mail from grandma seems like the most exciting thing in the world. Whatever the roots are behind it, and although that excitement is tempered as we grow older, there is still a lingering anticipation that comes with that delivery. The curiosity of what’s inside that envelope or package still remains. No, this isn’t winning the lottery type of excitement, but there is that twinge of emotion and quiet happiness that is genuine in each of us. Maybe that is due in part to the next point.

Direct Mail is Tangible

Advocates will support that having that letter, reminder card or catalog sitting on the living room table is invaluable. We can click out of an email, if we aren’t in our email we don’t even see it, but that tangible piece of paper, pamphlet or shopping catalog we can’t avoid. Then there is the fact that we can touch it, we can feel it. There have been enough studies to show that the more senses we engage the better we remember those things. The fact that it is real and tangible not digital or invisible carries some worthy consideration for the advantages of direct mail.

Multi-platform Marketing Works

None of this suggest that we throw away the advantages and advancements in technology. What this does suggest, however, is that a multi-faceted approach to marketing could be the most effective marketing strategy.

Yes, there is a place and there are times when it just makes more sense to use other marketing methods. Perhaps costs or time constraints dictate that email or digital marketing is the best method to utilize. What statistics show, and what we know on a personal level is that direct mail is unique and personal. We know that there is nothing that accomplishes exactly what direct mail can.

Combining the use of technology along with the advantages that direct mail offers gives marketers more options and the ability to reach more people in real ways. Direct mail isn’t dead, in fact, it is as effective as it has ever been. That might be in some strange way, because of the less personal and more frequent email and technology driven methods of communication. The bottom line is, we are still human and we crave human connection – and that is exactly what direct mail delivers.